Monica Walsh had tried pretty much every diet on the planet, including a three-week fast that worked—but made her feel “really unhealthy.” But after having a heart attack, the 47-year-old salesperson from Orlando, Florida, swore off fad diets and started looking for a more sensible solution. Jenn Moore, 35, an attorney who lives in Arlington, Vermont, was in the best shape of her life before she got pregnant, but six months after her son was born she was still carrying 20 pounds of “baby weight.” Mark Catalana, 43, a teacher in St. Louis, Missouri, has always loved cooking, but too much of a good thing, and too little exercise, left him 50 pounds above his “healthy” weight.

What do all these people have in common? Answer: They all wanted a better way to lose weight—and they’re not alone. When we issued a call for volunteers to participate in our three-month EatingWell Diet Challenge last summer, we got an overwhelming response: in just one week, we received more than 1,000 e-mails from people telling us why they were excited to try our diet.

After careful selection, we invited nine men and women (including Monica, Jenn and Mark) to join our Challenge. In return, we asked that they share their experiences in this issue.

For 12 weeks, the participants followed the principles and recipes of our cookbook, The EatingWell Diet: 7 Steps to a Healthy, Trimmer You (The Countryman Press). They tracked their calories and exercised. We offered them feedback on what they were eating and helped them troubleshoot their challenges.

“Losing weight isn’t rocket science. If you eat less and exercise more, you’ll lose,” says Jean Harvey-Berino, Ph.D., R.D., chair of the University of Vermont’s Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences and co-author of The EatingWell Diet. “But the hardest part of losing weight is figuring out how to engineer your life so that you’re able to do this.” Harvey-Berino has made a career of teaching people to lose weight by making small daily changes. Through her research, she has helped more than 1,000 people lose an average of 21 pounds in six months. Based on Harvey-Berino’s clinically tested weight-loss principles, the EatingWell Diet has the potential to help you and thousands of others lose weight too.

It’s already helped our Challenge participants. Collectively, over the three months, they lost a total of 112 pounds. Eager to get started? Here’s how: